Australian students risk losing cognitive abilities critical to their learning and development unless national action is urgently taken to guide and structure the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in schools.
A new report, coauthored by cognitive psychologist Professor Jason Lodge and Professor Leslie Loble AM, argues that AI can deepen learning but only if governments move quickly to adopt the draft national standards for safe, educationally sound tools and equip teachers to guide their use.
Released by the Australian Network for Quality Digital Education, the report outlines the need for a strong pedagogical response that supports students to offload lower-order tasks to AI while building self-regulated learning capability and critical thinking skills that will help students understand and evaluate complex content.
Professor Loble, who is the Network's Chair, said AI brought with it a significant risk for students who outsource too much cognitive work crucial to establishing their knowledge, skills and 'thinking infrastructure'.
"The cognitive offloading from human to AI is especially risky for school students, who are building the foundational knowledge and skills that enable both schooling and lifelong capacity for learning and understanding," said Professor Loble, who is also former chair of the Australian Education Ministerial Council's Schooling Policy Group and former Deputy Secretary in the NSW Department of Education.
"The educational imperative is not to protect students from a world where AI is the norm, but to prepare them for it. Young people need strong knowledge foundations and complex reasoning skills – not just the ability to 'Google it' or outsource the thinking to AI.
"We know students are already using AI extensively, so we can't put this policy challenge in the 'too hard' basket as we did until recently with social media. The issue isn't whether AI exists in classrooms, but whether it is being used to strengthen learning and help students become more effective thinkers.
"The decisions we make now will determine whether AI deepens students' knowledge and critical thinking, or instead hollows out the learning process and causes longterm harm to their cognitive development. AI's propensity for error and hallucination makes it even more essential that students build deep knowledge and strong analytical skills. Teachers are a crucial part of the solution."
The report identifies two critical leverage points for improving learning with AI:
Designing AI tools for schools that foster learning, not replace it. This means tools should promote cognitive engagement, deeper thinking and the development of foundational knowledge, not simply generate answers.
Giving teachers clear guidance, strategies and evidence-based resources to deploy AI effectively. Teachers remain the most important factor in student learning. With the right support, they can help students use AI to extend their thinking rather than outsource it.
Professor Lodge said a growing body of evidence showed that using AI can introduce serious risks for school students.
"School years are critical for building the memory stores and cognitive foundations that last a lifetime," he said. "If we allow AI to replace that process for some students, we risk creating a learning divide that will be very hard to close. Further investment in research to understand these mechanisms is crucial.
